1191571 - Console.jsm should wrap the WebIDL console

Status: RESOLVED DUPLICATE of bug 1425574

(DevTools :: General, defect)

Description

[Nick Fitzgerald [:fitzgen] [⏰PST; UTC-8]]

It is so annoying not having the real console. No time/timeEnd and a bunch of other methods.

Let's kill it from devtools and use the Real Thing.

Comment 1

[J. Ryan Stinnett [:jryans] (Use needinfo, replies may be slow)]

Brian has previous argued[1] that we should use Console.jsm more, as it can offer a more configurable logging environment.

Maybe we need more discussion here first?

[1]: https://groups.google.com/d/msg/mozilla.dev.developer-tools/9plcJGyRdP4/SqilxCL0Jy8J

Comment 2

[Nick Fitzgerald [:fitzgen] [⏰PST; UTC-8]]

I'm not going to fully remove Console.jsm here because:

1) The addon-sdk seems to depend on it and its funkiness pretty heavily, and
2) There are a few tests that seem to depend on the funkiness of Console.jsm as well.

This work will however make bug 988636 a lot easier.

Comment 3

[Nick Fitzgerald [:fitzgen] [⏰PST; UTC-8]]

Attachment: Part 0: Expose console to system globals

Comment 4

[Nick Fitzgerald [:fitzgen] [⏰PST; UTC-8]]

Attachment: Part 1: Remove Console.jsm from the devtools loader

Comment 5

[Nick Fitzgerald [:fitzgen] [⏰PST; UTC-8]]

Attachment: Part 2: Remove most Console.jsm usage from toolkit/devtools

This removes the usage of the Console.jsm's console as a generic console in
devtools. There are a few uses of Console.jsm still in toolkit/devtools, but
they are more specialized edge cases. Examples include tests for Console.jsm,
webconsole tests that want pretty output to stdout for tbpl logs, etc.

Comment 6

[Nick Fitzgerald [:fitzgen] [⏰PST; UTC-8]]

Attachment: Part 2: Remove most Console.jsm usage from browser/devtools

This removes most Console.jsm as a generic console usage from
browser/devtools. There were a few places that I didn't feel confident changing,
most seemed related to tests related Console.jsm and profiler interaction with
Console.jsm, etc.

Comment 7

[Nick Fitzgerald [:fitzgen] [⏰PST; UTC-8]]

(In reply to J. Ryan Stinnett [:jryans] (use ni?) from comment #1)
> Brian has previous argued[1] that we should use Console.jsm more, as it can
> offer a more configurable logging environment.
> 
> Maybe we need more discussion here first?
> 
> [1]:
> https://groups.google.com/d/msg/mozilla.dev.developer-tools/9plcJGyRdP4/
> SqilxCL0Jy8J

I will bring up discussion, but I don't think we need to block work here. I'm not removing Console.jsm, and this wouldn't inhibit work towards s/Console.jsm/DevToolsTracerThing.jsm.

Console.jsm is an inferior console compared to the webidl one, and is frequently inhibiting my debugging and profiling experience.

Whether it lives on as some custom devtools prefix logger doesn't make it a better console.

Comment 8

[Nick Fitzgerald [:fitzgen] [⏰PST; UTC-8]]

+---------------+--------------------------+-------------+
|               | WebIDL console           | Console.jsm |
+---------------+--------------------------+-------------+
|assert         | Yes                      | No          |
|clear          | Yes                      | Yes         |
|count          | Yes                      | No          |
|debug          | Yes                      | Yes         |
|dir            | Yes                      | Yes         |
|dirxml         | Yes                      | Yes         |
|error          | Yes                      | Yes         |
|exception      | Yes                      | Yes         |
|group          | Yes                      | Yes         |
|groupCollapsed | Yes                      | No          |
|groupEnd       | Yes                      | Yes         |
|info           | Yes                      | Yes         |
|log            | Yes                      | Yes         |
|markTimeline   | Yes                      | Yes         |
|profile        | Yes                      | No          |
|profileEnd     | Yes                      | No          |
|table          | Yes                      | No          |
|time           | Yes                      | Yes*        |
|timeEnd        | Yes                      | Yes*        |
|timeStamp      | Yes                      | No          |
|timeline       | Yes                      | No          |
|timelineEnd    | Yes                      | No          |
|trace          | Yes                      | Yes         |
|warn           | Yes                      | Yes         |
+---------------+--------------------------+-------------+

Yes* = the method is there but doesn't seem to work correctly and doesn't hook into the profiler's waterfall.

Comment 9

[Nick Fitzgerald [:fitzgen] [⏰PST; UTC-8]]

Additionally, group/groupEnd don't seem to work the same way they do on the WebIDL console; Console.jsm throws errors where the normal console does not.

Comment 10

[Nick Fitzgerald [:fitzgen] [⏰PST; UTC-8]]

Try push for these patches: https://treeherder.mozilla.org/#/jobs?repo=try&revision=854aa0b1c245

Comment 11

[Nick Fitzgerald [:fitzgen] [⏰PST; UTC-8]]

Additionally, Console.jsm does not support printf style %s substitutions.

Comment 12

[Nick Fitzgerald [:fitzgen] [⏰PST; UTC-8]]

Attachment: Part 0: Expose console to system globals

Comment 13

[Nick Fitzgerald [:fitzgen] [⏰PST; UTC-8]]

Attachment: Part 1: Remove Console.jsm from the devtools loader

Comment 14

[Nick Fitzgerald [:fitzgen] [⏰PST; UTC-8]]

https://treeherder.mozilla.org/#/jobs?repo=try&revision=e7db0adfd617

Comment 15

[Bobby Holley (:bholley)]

part 0 needs tests.

Comment 16

[Nick Fitzgerald [:fitzgen] [⏰PST; UTC-8]]

Ok, so after talking to devtools people, we are going to make Console.jsm wrap the WebIDL console as an easy way to preserve Console.jsm's prefix support and dumping to stdout.

Comment 17

[J. Ryan Stinnett [:jryans] (Use needinfo, replies may be slow)]

Comment on attachment 8644035 [details] [diff] [review]
Part 2: Remove most Console.jsm usage from toolkit/devtools

Canceling review per recent discussions until there's an updated version.

Comment 18

[Brian Grinstead [:bgrins]]

(In reply to Nick Fitzgerald [:fitzgen][:nf] from comment #16)
> Ok, so after talking to devtools people, we are going to make Console.jsm
> wrap the WebIDL console as an easy way to preserve Console.jsm's prefix
> support and dumping to stdout.

I'm in favor of that plan

Comment 19

[Nick Fitzgerald [:fitzgen] [⏰PST; UTC-8]]

Ok so even if we wrap the WebIDL console, time/timeEnd don't properly create markers for the waterfall. In fact it crashes because the console assumes that if we don't have mWindow, then we must be in a worker. So I started fixing that, and then got deep into refactoring the way that global markers work.

In the end, there are too many things to do here before we can move forward and I don't have the time. I was hoping this would be relatively short and sweet, but it is clear to me now that it is not that.

Comment 20

[Andrea Marchesini [:baku]]

I have a better approach that wrapping Console API in console.jsm: in bug 1425463, I wrote a set of patches that allows JSM code to use Console API directly. It also introduces prefix, dump function, console ID and all the features that Console.jsm currently has.